“No.”
“Maybe now we can get some really beautiful pictures of the buffalo and other fine color pictures. Where do you think the buffalo have gone?”
“I think they are over toward the Chulus. We’ll find out when Willie brings the Cessna.”
“Isn’t it strange how the Mountain throwing all those stones hundreds and hundreds of years ago can make a place impossible to get to so that it is absolutely shut off from everyone and no one can reach it since men started to go on wheels.”
“They’re helpless now without their wheels. Natives won’t go as porters anymore and the fly kills pack animals. The only parts of Africa that are left are those that are protected by deserts and by the fly. The tsetse fly is the animal’s best friend. He only kills the alien animals and the intruders.”
“Isn’t it strange how we truly love the animals and still have to kill almost every day for meat?”
“It’s no worse than caring about your chickens and still having eggs for breakfast and eating spring chicken when you want it.”
“It is different.”
“Of course it is. But the principle is the same. So much game has come now with the new grass that we may not have any trouble lions for a long time. There is no reason for them to bother the Masai when we have so much game now.”
“The Masai have too many cattle anyway.”
“Sure.”
“Sometimes I feel as though we were fools protecting their stock for them.”
“If you don’t feel like a fool in Africa a big part of the time you are a bloody fool,” I said rather pompously, I thought. But it was getting late enough at night for generalizations to appear the way some stars showed reluctant in their distance and disinterest and others always seemed brazen in their clarity.
“Do you think we should go to bed?” I asked.
“Let’s go,” she said. “And be good kittens and forget anything that’s been wrong. And when we’re in bed we can listen to the night.”
So we went to bed and were happy and loved each other with no sorrow and listened to the night noises. A hyena came close to the tent after we had left the fire and I had crawled in under the mosquito net and between the sheets and the blankets and lay with my back against the canvas wall of the tent with Mary comfortable in the main part of the cot. He cried out a few times in the strange rising pitch and another answered him and they moved through the camp and out beyond the lines. We could see the glow of the fire brightening when the wind came and Mary said, “Us kittens in Africa with our faithful good fire and the beasts having their night life. You really love me don’t you?”
“What do you think?”
“I think you do.”
“Don’t you know?”
“Yes, I know.”
After a while we heard two lions coughing as they hunted and the hyenas were quiet. Then a long way away to the north toward the edge of the stony forest beyond the gerenuk country we heard a lion roar. It was the heavy vibrating roar of a big lion and I held Mary close while the lion coughed and grunted afterwards.
“That’s a new lion,” she whispered.
“Yes,” I said. “And we don’t know anything against him. I’ll be very damned careful about any Masai that talk against him.”
“We’ll take good care of him, won’t we? Then he’ll be our lion the way our fire is our fire.”
“We’ll let him be his own lion. That’s what he really cares about.”
She was asleep now and after a while I was asleep and when I woke and heard the lion again she was gone and I could hear her breathing softly in her bed.
12
“MEMSAHIB SICK?” Mwindi asked as he fixed the pillows so that Mary could lie with her head toward the wide-open end of the tent and tested the air mattress on the cot with the palm of his hand before drawing the sheets smooth over the mattress and folding them tightly under.
“Yes. A little.”
“Maybe from eat the lion.”
“No. She was sick before kill the lion.”
“Lion run very far very fast. Was very angry and sad when he die. Maybe make poison.”
“Bullshit,” I said.
“Hapana bullshit,” Mwindi said gravely. “Bwana Captain Game Ranger eat lion too. He sick too.”
“Bwana Captain Game Ranger sick with same sickness long back Salengai.”
“Eat lion Salengai too.”
“Mingi bullshit,” I said. “He sick before I kill lion. Hapana eat lion in Salengai. Eat lion here after safari from Salengai. When lion skinned Salengai all chop boxes packed. Nobody eat that morning. You think back bad.”
Mwindi shrugged his shoulders under the long green gown. “Eat lion Bwana Captain Game Ranger sick. Memsahib sick.”
“Who eat lion feel fine? Me.”
“Shaitani,” Mwindi said. “I see you sick to die before. Many years ago when you young man you sick to die after you kill lion. Everybody know you die. Ndege know. Bwana know. Memsahib know. Everybody remember when you die.”
“Did I eat the lion?”
“No.”
“Was I sick before I kill that lion?”
“Ndio,” Mwindi said reluctantly. “Very sick.”
“You and me talk too much.”
“We are Mzees. All right talk if you wish talk.”
“Kwisha talk,” I said. I was tired of the pidgin English and I did not think much of the idea that was building up.
“Memsahib goes to Nairobi in the ndege tomorrow. Doctor in Nairobi cures her sickness. Come back from Nairobi well and strong. Kwisha,” I said, meaning it is finished.
“Mzuri sana,” Mwindi said. “I pack everything.”
I went out of the tent and Ngui was waiting under the big tree. He had my shotgun.
“I know where there are two kwali. Shoot them for Miss Mary.”
Mary was not back yet and we found the two francolin dusting in a patch of dried dirt at the edge of the big fever trees. They were small and compact and quite beautiful. I waved at them and they started to run crouching for the brush so I shot one on the ground and the other as it rose.
“Any more?” I asked Ngui.
“Only the pair.”
I handed the gun to him and we started back for camp, me holding the two plump birds, warm and clear-eyed with their soft feathers blowing in the breeze. I would have Mary look them up in the bird book. I was quite sure I had never seen them before and that they might be a local Kilimanjaro variety. One would make a good broth and the other would be good for her if she wanted solid food. I would give her some Terramycin and some Chlorodyne to tie things up. I was uncertain about the Terramycin but she seemed to get no bad reactions from it.
I was sitting in a comfortable chair in the cool mess tent when I saw Mary come up to our tent. She washed and then came over and into the door of the tent and sat down.
“Oh my,” she said. “Should we not mention it?”
“I could drive you back and forth in the hunting car.”
“No. It’s as big as a hearse.”
“Take this stuff now if you can hold it down.”
“Would it be terrible to have a gimlet for my morale?”
“You’re not supposed to drink but I always did and I’m still here.”
“I’m not quite sure whether I’m here or not. It would be nice to find out.”
“We’ll find out.”
I made the gimlet and then said that there was no hurry to take the medicine and for her to go in and lie down on the bed and rest and read if she felt like it or I would read to her if she would like.
“What did you shoot?”
“A couple of very small francolin. They’re like small partridges. I’ll bring them in after a while and you can look at them. They’ll make you supper.”